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Four medallists stripped, Armstrong not yet

Thu Dec 06 11:49:20 EST 2012

Four medallists from the 2004 Olympic Games were officially stripped of their medals on Thursday (AEDT) by the International Olympic Committee, but Lance Armstrong will keep his bronze from 2000 - for now.

New analysis of dope tests taken at the Athens Games revealed traces of steroids in four athletes' samples.

Ukraine's Yuri Belonog was stripped of his shot put gold medal, Belarus' Ivan Tikhon of his silver in the hammer, and Irina Yatchenko of Belarus and Russian Svetlana Krivelyova lost their bronze medals in the women's discus and shot put respectively.

It is the second Olympic medal Tikhon has been stripped of, having had his bronze from the 2008 Games taken away also for a doping offence.

There is a fifth medallist from the 2004 Games who is at risk of being disqualified, but whose name will be revealed later by the IOC because of a delay in the procedure of the athlete's test.

Since the Athens Games all dope tests taken at the Olympics have been stored in a large deep freeze in the basement of the anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne for a duration of eight years.

The IOC had asked the laboratory to reanalyse 105 tests taken at the Games in Athens, which holds the unwanted record for the most failed dope tests in the Olympic history.

The IOC will not strip Armstrong of his bronze medal yet because of a technicality demanding that the world cycling governing body, UCI, first inform the American, who would then have recourse to sport's highest court, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"On the Armstrong case, the IOC will not move today," IOC president Jacques Rogge said.

"The IOC will have to wait for the UCI to formally notify Mr Armstrong. Then Mr Armstrong will have three weeks to appeal to CAS if he so wishes and it is only then the IOC will take and can take action."

Meanwhile, former Armstrong team-mate David George has been handed a two-year ban after he admitted using EPO last month following a positive out-of-competition test.